Comic Book Review - Steambound #1

Rob Lake reviews Steambound Issue #1...

Pandora. It is easy to get lost on the streets of mega-cities, like our protagonists, Hound, Yaeger, and Alice have. Raised together and linked by friendship and spider addiction, Hound is a knight of the order's restricted council, while Yaeger, genetically modified, works for the city's criminal cartels. Alice's request for help will force the group to join again.

Steambound is a new series coming from Behemoth Comics. Written by Giuseppe Andreozzi, this opening issues tells the story of childhood friends, Hound and Yaeger. Set within the sprawling city of Pandora, the two now distant friends are forced back together to help one of their own. 

Guiseppe Andreozzi wastes no time in exploring the past of both Hound and Yaeger. We get to see the two youngsters exploring Al Khali, which resembles an Arabian style town. As the twosome stare up at the night's sky, we're then introduced to the running theme of Steambound...Spider. 

Whilst it's not explicitly explained what it is, Andreozzi makes no illusion as to it's the thing that controls Pandora - and Yaeger is addicted to it. 

We then jump a few years into the future to rejoin the now-adult Yaeger and his partner Puk. There's more backstory building as Yaeger and Puk are in the middle of stealing some kind of monsters eggs. There is some nice to and fro as the pair trade insults as Yaeger gets attacked by the monster. The biggest part of this is that Puk takes on an Incredible Hulk style role, in that eating a pepper causes him to 'Hulk-up'. In the space of a panel, Puk goes from a cute teddy bear/Turtle into a full-blown badass. It's clever, and will no doubt become a regular occurrence. 

Recovering from this escapade it isn't long before Yaeger runs into Hound. At the outset, Hound seems to be the better off of the two, but we soon learn that he works for Pandora's criminal element known as the Order. It's through this interaction that we're introduced to the third element of this story - Alice. Again, Andreozzi takes us back into the past as the two boys search for a mysterious thief. Of course, this happens to be Alice, which this issue ending as she confronts Hound and Yaeger. 

For an opening issue, Steambound isn't at all bad. Guiseppe Andreozzi gives enough story to keep the reader interested in what's going on. Whilst issue one revolved around Yaeger and Hound, I'm expecting the next to feature more on the trio (Yaeger, Hound and Alice), for the story to properly kick-off in issue 3. 

Lorenzo Di Santo and Francesca Cittarelli bring some great art and colours to the proceedings. The look of Al Khali is very reminiscent of Arabia, what with its bright sun-soaked rooftops and dark narrow streets. Both iterations of the characters are well presented with the older versions having traits seen within their younger selves. Action is also represented well with plenty of strong lines and colours. 

All in all, Steambound is off to a good start. Whilst localisation is a small issue (which is being worked on for issue 2) it's nothing major to moan about. The overall story hasn't kicked in yet, but as mentioned earlier, I'm expecting Andreozzi to give us a past back story whilst drip-feeding the present.

Rating 7/10

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